Paying attention and being safe is everybody’s responsibility.

Cool. I assume “everybody” means everybody - including kids, right? That’s a pretty big ask. I mean, below a certain age they can’t read. And even younger than that, they actually can’t talk. Realistically we cannot put this responsibility on kids.

So put the responsibility on the parents, right? After all, when a child is killed by a car, we blame the parents for their carelessness. Now kids must be supervised when they are outside. The net effect is that kids don’t play outside as much - and they NEVER play in the street, even though that used to be possible.

But hold on: the kids aren’t just pawns here; they actually have rights. There’s no license required to walk on the sidewalk; it’s a free society, right? So kids actually deserve this, too - and not just the kids who have helicopter parents. Incidentally, the elderly have the same right to just exist on a sidewalk.

Meanwhile, adult drivers must get a license from the government to operate a vehicle, they pay monthly for insurance because collision rates are stupid-high, and if they stop doing all that, it’s actually ILLEGAL for them to keep driving. The default condition is that you cannot drive; you must ask permission.

So on the one hand, we have a babe as free as the day they were born, and on the other hand, a whole-ass grownup in a vehicle - and you want to suggest the baby has ANY accountability here? Like, the driver has more accountability, but the baby needs to keep itself alive or else: darwin award. Is that possible?

Of course that’s absurd. So probably when you said “everyone” you didn’t actually mean the kids walking to school this morning. They have parents to keep them safe.

Because all parents walk their kids to school until Grade 12, right? No; again, our society has never required children to be supervised 24/7 until they become legal adults. Kids walk to school by themselves after grade 3. Kids walk to the park. Kids ride their bikes. Kids used to play street hockey.

And if your child in grade 6 walks to school alone and a driver hits them, how is the KID in ANY way responsible for being hit? Like, kids are goofy. They push each other. They just trip and fall.

And we’re really going to give CHILDREN any level of accountability corresponding to the actions of a licensed adult driver? Fuck right off with that. That’s absurd. I mean, it’s unfortunately true right now: kids actually do take on that responsibility. And in doing so, we - the grownups in society - have failed them.

So you’re wrong: there are whole classes of people living in our city who have a right to be outside without accepting ANY of an adult driver’s responsibility for the way that grownup operates a vehicle.